Author: Leslie

I finished law school and somehow survived taking the California Bar exam. That means I’m back: Burns Auto Parts is fully functional and accepting new clients. If you are interested in working together, please contact me. Email or phone/text (619.961.5882) is dandy, or you can send me a Facebook message, even.

One important point: I may have taken the Bar, but that doesn’t mean I passed it and that means I can’t give legal advice yet. No fair asking me to review your contracts, for example. Bummer, but that would be practicing law without a license, donchaknow. Soon, hopefully, but not yet. I’ll get the Bar results in May.

In the meantime I can, however, still help you with your marketing, editing and/or sequencing your portfolio/website, building lists via your list service of choice, etc. You can get all the things people for which people have come to me for help in the past, but now with even more experience and knowledge.

I’m excited to get back to the work I love, even while looking forward to adding the Law (once I pass the Bar). I’ve got lots of ideas and plans (a new book and lecture series for starters) so stay tuned.

I’d also like to thank everyone for the understanding, support, and general fabulousness of all of you. I’ve received emails and FB messages cheering me throughout the long law school/Bar process. You’ve been amazing. Thanks so very, very much for being behind me.

Now, on to the future!

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One other note: I’ve moved to Los Angeles and I’ve also updated the BAP website with more information, including the new address and some Manuals. Check it out.

I’m sorry for the lack of posts. I’m a bad blogger. Although I have been posting fairly regularly on the BAP Facebook page, I’ve been awful about this blog. My last term was a load of work, including writing a paper on the silliness that is the publication status requirement for copyright registration, and something had to go… that thing was this blog.

Sadly, I’m afraid this will not get better soon. I’ll cop to it–I’m not going to be able to keep up with this very much. If you want more current info, go to the Facebook page.

However, even there I won’t be as active as I have been. I’m studying to take the California Bar exam and until that happens, I’ll be crazy-busy. No work, no life, just study.

Yes, I graduated from law school… Monday, actually. The Bar exam prep course (BarBri) started Tuesday morning–no rest for the wicked, as they say. Christmas will be short and will involve hitting the books at some point. Same for New Year’s. Ugh.

But it will be worth it.

I often hear creatives complain about having to do stuff they don’t enjoy. I’ve heard them say things like that they hate doing their bookkeeping or making cold calls. Well, that is just the price to do the stuff you love. Studying for the Bar is, in many ways, hell. But I do it with a joyful heart because I know that if I do it well it will bring me closer to doing what I love.

2011 is penciling out to be an amazing year for me. After I take the Bar in late February, I’ll be relocating to Los Angeles. I’m starting a new life there, relaunching my business in some ways, and, hopefully I’ll hear in late May that I passed the bar and will add the Law to my service offerings. I’m excited.

But to get there, to get to where I want to be, I’ll have to study hard, pack and move (ick!), and get back to work in a very big way asap post-Bar.

Until then, I’ll try to post occasionally here.

Deep in school stuff but I have a related question for you: What do you think about the published/unpublished distinction in © registration? That is, does it ever pose a problem for you? Have you ever not registered because of it (especially older unregistered images)? Have you ever fudged a submission because you just didn’t want to have to think about it? Any thoughts on the published/unpublished issue would be great. You can email me if you’d rather not share publicly.

I finally have had enough of ASMP bending over for those who are most against the strongest copyright enforcement. Today, my gauge read “full” when I read Richard Kelly’s tweet encouraging photographers to read this ill-informed piece by Jonathan Bailey on the stupidly named* “Plagiarism Today” website:

It is incredibly hard to do this. I have liked so many of the people associated with ASMP and have worked with them for years. This is like a bad break-up. But I cannot continue to be supportive of the group as it goes down this path.

And sure, this tweeted link isn’t as bad as warmly welcoming Lessig to your table, but it was, for me, the final straw. Maybe it’s because I have been killing myself in law school working to learn all I can to defend the rights of creatives and seeing such an important group give in like this is painfully frustrating. As I’m in the middle of doing research on copyright law and new technologies for a paper, when I read things like how copyright is bad for small creatives, all I can think is “Son of a bitch… another one has bought into the anti-corporate shell game obfuscation spewed by people like Lessig and the EFF and others.”

I could sit on my hands. I’m going to make lots of people angry by posting this, but if I want to look in the mirror, if I want to be a person of honor, I cannot sit by any more and be a part of such a group.

I don’t like calling out an organization I have been a part of for years, but I cannot be a part of a group that claims to be pro-creative that simultaneously does not stand up exclusively for its members’ best interests

Therefore, I will not be renewing my ASMP membership when it expires at the end of the year. I do not believe that ASMP is doing right by its members. It would be hypocritical of me to continue my membership.

I quit.

For those of you who have been signing away too many rights for editorial projects, look what Pepsi is doing. They are re-monetizing editorial images as apps. You read that right…they are taking editorial images and repurposing them.

The next person who says that it’s okay to just sign contracts because the images really won’t be used again (think about the old Boston Globe WFH fight, etc.) gets a (figurative) beating.

Contact your senators and representatives now to tell them to support COICA, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act. Here’s more about it from the Copyright Alliance. The anti-© forces are really fighting this so we need to get out there and get this information to people. Be positive, talk about the advantages economically for society, etc. Don’t just focus on your own issues but talk about the importance overall, that will help sway those who have been mislead by the anti-© forces.

Need contact info? Here’s how to find your senators’ info. And here is for your House reps.

Finally! My 2d edition version of Business Basics for the Successful Commercial Photographer is available on Amazon.  You can get it here or by clicking on the image.

For those of you who have already purchased the book, I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the time to post a review on Amazon.

I’m very excited to have this out there especially before the holiday season. The last edition was a very popular gift to interns and assistants. I hope this one will be too.

Thanks for everyone’s patience!

Everyone and every business has rules… rules that start off often as decisions but somehow morph into inviolable rules. What rules have you set up for yourself/your business, implicit and explicit? Have you taken a look at them lately? Maybe it’s time you do…

…with a big Sharpie in hand for editing.

This idea is particularly important for those of you who have been in business for a while. More than likely, you have rules that are holding you and your business back. They may be as simple as the choice of lights or lenses you always always use or more complex like how you define and charge usage.

Here’s a quick hint to help you identify the suspect rules: if you say “In my day…” or “That’s not the way it’s done…” you probably have some examinable rules.

I think you should break your rules… at least once in a while. Why? Because really it’s a form of testing to see if these inviolable dictates are helping or hindering you and/or your business. See, often we set up rules which sound logical but which are, in reality, just a way of playing it safe.

You can’t play it safe and be a successful businessperson. Hell, you can’t be a successful person either.

I’m writing from experience. Trust me, I love rules. Stephen Webster used to say when I worked with him that I was born with a red pen in my hand and that I was an idealist. Both are signs that I love order and regularity and, most of all, predictability. I want society to follow the rules and law school makes perfect sense with that mindset.

At the same time, that love of the rules has held me back in the past. Rigidity is not good. The buildings that fall in earthquakes are the rigid ones and, hoo boy, our industry is in the middle of a looooong temblor.

Experience has taught me to let go and challenge my rules and I have done more and been happier because of that. A simple example: just this year I rode on the back of a Harley in Los Angeles freeway traffic, lane sharing (that is, going in-between the cars already in lanes–legal in CA), for the first time. I hardly knew the man in control of the machine and I loathe LA traffic so much I’ll avoid driving there (in a car!) whenever possible. So, that act challenged all sorts of my beliefs and rules and tested my abilities. I thought I’d hate it, especially the lack of control, but instead it was fantastic. Now I feel like I can do things I never thought I could before. I got confidence in myself and a renewed ability to trust others which I have since applied to my studies and business.

Loosening your rules, challenging your long-held beliefs, trying something new, letting go of “in my day” thinking and external rules (“it’s not done that way” bah!), those will all help you to get through the bouncy business times we’re in.  So what if no one else has packaged usage the way you do or shot that kind of image with that lens or made a promo like that… do it anyway. Challenge the status quo if you want to be successful, and start that by challenging your own rules.

If you hear someone say that photographers and their clients are in opposition, run. That kind of old thinking will ruin your business today.

For example, click-through copyright notices on your website might give you a teeny bit of additional legal protection (I think of it as just one piece of paper in a file folder full), but buyers hate them. Also, those who are going to steal from you are going to steal from you–they won’t even read the notice. Still, some people insist photographers need to have them and say that buyers should get over it.

Horse hockey, as my father would say. You don’t need to do anything that alienates your targets and your targets don’t need to get over anything.

Instead, you need to find a way to balance your interests and your targets’ interests. Working together is the best way to achieve this. Listen to what they say to you–especially their complaints and worries, and work towards solutions.

That means doing things like finding pricing structures that work for both of you–that is, usage-based pricing “packaged” in a way that your targets will like. It also means being flexible on contract terms (flexible–not “bend over and just take whatever they want”). And while you need to protect your copyright, you can do that without sounding like a paranoid, jealous boyfriend–that is, constantly telling your targets about your rights under copyright is like saying “Did you look at my girlfriend? I’ll kick your ass!”

The most successful photographers I know–the ones who work consistently and who really are enjoying their professional lives–are the ones who work with their clients the most. They never see clients as the enemy. They’re never greedy nor are they milquetoasts. And on those very rare occasions that they get a new client who is a jerk, they can choose never to work with that person again because they have plenty of business. They have fun in their work, focus on the creativity, and make good money.

On the other hand, the photographers I know who are the least happy in their professional lives are the ones who are the most us-versus-them-ish. Coincidence? I think not.

We’re almost to the last quarter of 2010–wow, the year has flown by! Now is the time to be thinking seriously about what you want to accomplish next year. I suggest taking a day, grabbing a friend/colleague/partner, and going off-site someplace with a pad of paper or a Moleskin and a pen and brainstorming possible goals for 2011. What do you want to accomplish? What dreams to you want to achieve?

I was in a law school class recently where the professor was talking about the importance of brainstorming. The class? The most practical one you can take: Trial Practice, where one learns how to be a lawyer in the courtroom. The professor, the fabulous Mario Conte, said that the first thing to do with any case is to brainstorm about it with others. The others don’t have to be lawyers–just others with whom you can exchange ideas…pretty much just riff off of each other. This way one can find the best, strongest image goals for the presentation of the case and then you can build on that to success for that case.

Same goes for photographers and any creative biz pro. When you are thinking about your goals for the future, you can get stuck in your own head and in what you think is “reasonable.” Brainstorming with someone else helps drop those walls and frees you to just explore.

The great thing about brainstorming is that nothing is out of bounds–if you think “I want to shoot for Vanity Fair” and you are a lowly second-year photo student, so what? Write it down when you are brainstorming. Anything goes!

Then, later, you can go through the free-form thoughts and pick out the things you really will try to accomplish.

For now, take a day and let yourself dream/imagine with abandon.